Crazy Girl

Night time is probably the worst, they used to give me sleeping medication because my brain just won’t turn off and in the darkness the line between reality and imagination gets blurred more and more, but then my therapist thought I was becoming dependant on the sleeping medication so she stopped prescribing it. And ever since I have spent my nights between tossing and turning and talking to the shadows. Last night was particularly bad I was stuck talking the voices who haunt the darkness about my outburst, it was too familiar, reminiscent of what happened last year that landed me in the hospital under 24-hour watch. I don’t want to go back, I don’t want to be followed around by nurses and my delusions but yesterday I felt myself slipping, falling backwards and losing my grip on reality. I can’t let it happen again. Half the part of being well is acting like you are, if I can fool everyone around me maybe I can fool my restless brain.

My alarm goes off but I sleep through it, I also sleep through my mother knocking on my bedroom door for three minutes straight only waking when my dad comes in and pulls my covers off threatening to pour cold water on me. I grumble unintelligible words under my breath and get out of bed; I rub the purple circles under my eyes and shower in record time foregoing washing my hair. I pack on a crap load of concealer hoping to conceal how little I have been sleeping and swipe a mascara wand through my lashes and a swipe of pink blush on my cheeks so I don’t look so dead. With one minute to spare before my ride shows up I amble into the kitchen slipping my feet into my chucks, my mother is standing behind the bench holding out a plate of toast with her no nonsense face.

“Eat” She says shoving the toast in my direction. I am not a morning person and definitely not a breakfast person unless it is served at noon in the variety of chocolate chip pancakes with extra whip cream,

“Seriously?” I ask frowning at the toast, my stomach turns at the thought, when I was away at hospital the nurses monitored all my meals and made sure I ate regularly something that I found difficult when I was at my worst.

“You know as well as I do that the doctors said you shouldn’t take your medication on an empty stomach,” My mother says leaving me no room to argue, if I do try to argue it will seem like I am trying to sabotage my health and that would be cause for alarm, so I take the toast and take a bite chewing enthusiastically for my mother’s benefit.

My mum busies herself with stacking the dishwasher with last night’s dirty dishes, my dad left for work twenty minutes ago and mum has the day off. She works every second day as a registered nurse at the local hospital, she and my dad met in college when she was studying to become a doctor, in her second year she fell pregnant and decided to get her nursing license instead. They bought this house with the help of my father’s parents and my dad found a job as a teacher finding himself promoted early on to principal where he has stayed ever since.

Our house is certainly nothing fancy but at the same time is nice, it is probably because my mother spent a year decorating it and matching wall papers to carpets to furniture. The kitchen is painted a dull peach; the granite counter tops are always sparkling thanks to my mother’s obsessive cleaning. I think the only room in our house that isn’t freakishly clean is my room which I know annoys her to no end.

I eat the whole piece of toast and ditch the plate on the bench when I hear the honk of a car from the driveway signalling my ride. I kiss my mum on the cheek and grab my book bag before she can complain I haven’t eaten enough. In the double driveway on the left of the house sits a blue truck with peeling paint and broken windshield wipers the driver of the car is playing on his phone not bother to look up when I slip in the passenger’s seat,

“Morning,” I say to my ride and best friend, okay only friend, Ashton as he puts his phone down and looks behind him reversing,

“Morning, did you just wake up?”

“What?” I ask pulling down the visor and looking at my reflection, I don’t look too awful I guess.
“Your hair,” He says pointing to it, “It’s messy, did you even brush it?” I want to remind Ashton that for a year he sported a fake nose ring and bleach blonde hair so he is in no position to criticise how anyone else looks but I know he will kick me out of the car.
“Shut up, I slept in,”

“What’s new” He says flipping off a passing car that forgot the purpose of a stop sign. “I heard about your tirade,” Ashton says glancing at me with humour.

Great.

“How?”

“Tricia Wu filmed it on her phone.” He says pointing to the phone resting on his lap,

“Silent bitch,” I mutter grabbing his phone and watching the video of my acting like a complete lunatic. The video has been shot from over the edge of a table and the camera is constantly shaking that however does not distract from my booming voice and jerking hand movements as I rant. “I should lace her food with meat, see how funny she thinks this is then” I grumble locking the phone ending my torture.

“What are the chances she only sent this to you?”

“Slim, slimmer than slim really, actually non-existent,”

“Okay I get it” I growl cutting him off before he can make me feel any worse, in an attempt to distract myself from the upcoming doom that will be school today I make conversation, “Were where you yesterday, I tried calling you like hundred times,”

“You called twice Blake,” I roll my eyes waiting for his answer, “I was in detention,”

“Why?”

“They accused me of trying to hack into student files and change grades,”

“Oh… Did you?” I ask because this sounds exactly like something Ashton would do, he is kind of a tech genius, unfortunately he rarely uses his tech gifts for good.

“Of course! But there’s no way in hell I’m admitting to it,” All that is missing is the duh!

Ashton’s dad is a high paid defence lawyer who has taught him few things not related to getting away with murder, not literally murder but now that I think about it Ash probably could plead his conviction down to at least manslaughter. One of the few things Ashton senior has taught his son not related to getting away with crime is about the value of a dollar and working for what you have, which is why Ashton took a minimum wage job at the local video game store and bought this heap and shit car instead of driving one of his dad’s shiny new cars.

Because Ashton’s father is so into teaching his son moral responsibilities Ashton has taken to illegal means of making money. The only reason Ashton bothers hacking into anything is not because he enjoys it but rather because people are willing to pay him and he is in no position to turn down money, especially if it means getting away from his father who is less than ideal. Since he has taken getting paid for his less that legal services his presence in detention has doubled and as such his presence in my home has halved, hence his honking his arrival and not coming in for breakfast.

My parents are split on their feelings regarding my friendship with Ash, my mum is just grateful that someone stood by me after last year and that I actually have a live breathing friend rather than the ones that live in my head, even if my live friend is technically a delinquent. My father hates my friendship with a trouble maker, he thinks that by simply being in Ash’s presence I too will break the rules and get in trouble I’m sure he blames some of what happened last year on Ash. My father wishes I would just make new friends, he doesn’t seem to understand that people are either laughing at me or terrified of me, there is no in-between to make new friends.

I know why I scare people not just because I am ‘unstable’ but because I look just like them and for the most part act just like them; I am essentially no different on the outside. I am not particularly horrible looking nor am I scary with a permanent grimace and vampire teeth, I am just normal. At least from the outside on the inside I am grappling with a slow descent into pure insanity with voices in my head that tell me everyone is the enemy and that the hallucinations I suffer are the only real things in this world, on the inside I am broken and crumbling slowly into the unknown, but from the outside you would never know and I know that is scary because if I someone so normal looking could be bat shit crazy why couldn’t they? Doubting your sanity is the scariest thing in this world, I know I have never dealt with anything as confusing as my own sanity.

My diagnosis does nothing to assure them that they are safe from suffering a fate different to my own, my disease isn’t always inherited sometimes the brain is just screwed up and you develop what is commonly referred to as paranoid schizophrenia. I don’t think I have ever actually said my diagnosis out loud, when I was diagnosed I didn’t believe them I was too young to understand, I was twelve but as I aged I grew more and more sick until in an explosion of insanity and confusion I labelled myself with nothing more than a diagnosis.

I think that is my biggest fear that I will never amount to anything more than being a schizophrenic, that for the rest of my life I will be the crazy one unable to accomplish anything of any real merit, that is why even against my doctors wishes I spent my summer holidays, after being released from hospital, studying, catching up on the four months of school I missed after my episode.

Ashton pulls into an empty parking spot in the school parking lot and I realise I have been lost in my thoughts again, at least this time they weren’t speaking back to me. A sudden nausea settles deep in my stomach and almost as suddenly as I realise I am at school my anxiety sets in. My heart races and my palms sweat, I wipe them on my pants but it is no use they won’t stop producing sweat I try not to freak out, my breathing is shallow and short my lungs will not fill with enough air and I am starting to hyperventilate. I want to go home. I want to turn around and get the fuck out of here.

I close my eyes and lean forward pretending to reach for my bag desperately trying to remember what it was my therapist told me to do when I felt like this, take deep breaths? I breath in through my nose and out through my mouth focusing for a minute on nothing but taking steady long breaths.

It doesn’t help immediately but after a few hundred breaths I notice that my heart rate is slowing down and my hands are not as sweaty as before, I almost feel triumphant until I realise I still have to go in to school. I sigh and grab my bag reaching for the door handle to get out of the car,
“Wait Blake,” Ash says grabbing my arm and stopping me from jumping out of the car, I freeze in my spot and slowly turn to face him. Ashton isn’t an overly affectionate person, which honestly I appreciate since I find emotions and emotional displays uncomfortable and perplexing, but right now staring into his icy blue eyes I feel awful, I can see all the worry and love written in his concerned expression, god I hate this. I know what comes next, I know what is coming, what the nest words out of his mouth will be because they are all anyone asks anymore, are you okay?

“Are you okay? I mean you are okay right?” He pauses and frowns at me as if by making intense eye contact he will be able to tell if I am lying, god I hate lying to Ashton.

“Yes,” Technically it’s not a lie I am okay, I am managing, barely but I am managing.

“You would tell me wouldn’t you?” Again with the intense eye contact I want to look away so fucking desperately but I don’t want to appear suspicious, god I just want to be normal.

“Of course,” this time I am lying, really lying and I feel like the world’s worst best friend, maybe because I am. I am a terrible friend.

“Because Blake you can, you can tell me anything,” I want to tell him, I want to be honest and say that I can no longer really tell what is real and what is delusions that I am constantly confused and in a state of alert but I am scared. I am terrified of losing him and everyone and I can’t go through last year again I just can’t. The words, they just don’t come instead lies do and I hate myself so much for lying,

“I know and I promise I would,” But it’s not that simple, nothing is.